West Ham v Liverpool: Brendan Rodgers must get rotation right, says Jamie Redknapp
'Big players need rest - but at the correct time'
Saturday 20 September 2014 09:16, UK
Brendan Rodgers is facing a new challenge this season: rotating his team to cope with the demands of European football.
Liverpool could focus on Saturday to Saturday last year and all his players were champing at the bit to get on the pitch.
However, with their Champions League commitments this term, Rodgers has to manage his squad carefully, bring in or rest certain players at the right times and get the balance correct.
Balotelli's strike against Ludogorets will do wonders for his confidence but also for the team’s confidence in him.
There was perhaps an example this week of what happens if he doesn’t get it quite right.
After beating Tottenham 3-0 at White Hart Lane before the international break, Liverpool should have gone into their home match with Aston Villa high on confidence.
But, for a team already adjusting to losing their best player in Luis Suarez, and with Daniel Sturridge out injured, the decision to leave out Raheem Sterling and give Adam Lallana and Lazar Markovic their Anfield debuts backfired and Liverpool didn’t flow against Villa.
As a result, nerves were there for the Ludogorets game in midweek and they struggled to get a win over a team they should have been capable of blowing away.
When you’re making your first appearance for a new team you want to go into a team full of confidence, with the best players there – not with three or four other new players playing.
You might think with almost £50m of talent in Lallana and Markovic coming in it shouldn’t make much of a difference but that Villa game showed what big players do to a team.
Chelsea had a similar experience against Schalke, when Diego Costa was left out. Without him it was like watching Chelsea of last season; these big players take your team to another level and Sterling and Sturridge do that at Liverpool.
I don’t think Rodgers will make that mistake again this weekend and I’m sure we’ll see Sterling come back into the starting XI. However, this is all part of the challenge when you’re playing in the Champions League.
There will certainly come a time when he has to leave out Steven Gerrard, too, because he can’t keep flogging him. But he has to get the timing - and balance of the side he puts out - right.
Boost
A big boost for him this week, though, was Mario Balotelli scoring his first goal for the club.
That strike against Ludogorets will do wonders for his confidence but also for the team’s confidence in him. The longer he went without scoring the more they would have started looking around thinking ‘we need Sturridge back’, but that goal should breathe life into him.
I don’t know what performance we’ll see from him on Saturday Night Football – I’m sure Rodgers and even Balotelli himself don’t know either – but he should be full of desire to score more goals for Liverpool.
Liverpool will need his goals too, because at the other end of the field, West Ham’s new strike partnership look like a threatening prospect.
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Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia looked a formidable pairing against Hull on Monday Night Football and I was really impressed with them. They linked up extremely well and brought speed and pace to the team with their quick passing and movement.
The crucial thing for West Ham this weekend, though, is to keep it tight early on because, although Upton Park is a tough place to go, at the moment, whe
